hanging upside down from the rafters

Strange Little Girl

I grew up without a TV. This had a profound effect on my life in many ways. I was always the strange little girl at school, left out of conversations about TV programmes I didn’t even know existed, and unaware of many nuances of popular culture that were ingrained into my peers. I remember being shocked that people thought my house was weird because we didn’t have a living room carpet (we had a wooden floor, which my mum would polish every month with an extremely odd machine that had headlights).

On the positive side, I discovered the joys of reading very early on. My parents started teaching me to read when I was two and a half years old – I remember the utter exhilaration of getting the word on the flash card right – and by the time I went to school I was a fluent reader. The teachers didn’t believe me until I proved it to them…

Mrs Trembath: “So which of these books looks nice, dear? Look at the pictures and see which one you’d like to try.”Pippa: “Don’t you have any books with more words in?”Mrs Trembath: “??????”Pippa: “I can read, you know.”Mrs Trembath: “Yes dear, I’m sure you can. Now which book would you like to look at?”Strange little girl moves over to another bookshelf and pulls out a book at random.Pippa: “How about this one – it’s called ‘The House at Three Corners’. I’ve seen it in the library but I haven’t read it yet.”Mrs Trembath: “!!!!!!!!”Strange little girl proceeds to read the whole of ‘The House at Three Corners’ to Mrs Trembath.Mrs Trembath: “Mrs Hartigan, come and see this!”Mrs Trembath asks strange little girl to read the book again. Mrs Hartigan looks on in amazement.

That was the first time I noticed my strangeness.

I spent a lot of time at my local library – Woodley Library, on Church Road. It moved to a new building close to the shopping centre while I was at university, but the original building was an old house with a terrapin-type extension attached. The children’s books were in the old house part, and that was my home from home. We were only allowed to take six books out at a time, so until I was old enough to go by myself I’d badger Dad to take me at least once a week.

I didn’t just choose books, I lingered over them, I read them there and then, I ran my fingers along the spines, I talked to the librarians and asked them for recommendations. Quite often I’d ask random people which books they liked – I discovered science fiction that way. I must have read Heinlein’s Have Spacesuit, Will Travel at least twenty times. I went to the jungle and the Amazon and the ocean floor with Willard Price, to the moon with Tintin and the Olympic Games with Asterix, to ancient Spain with El Cid, to Where the Wild Things Are with Max and the Night Kitchen with Mickey…

At weekends and in the holidays, we lived in Dorset, in a remote village which didn’t even have a shop, let alone a library. I used to borrow books from everyone who had them. I read Mills and Boon (and didn’t understand it), Christian educational tales from the ex-missionary who lived over the road, PG Wodehouse, Thomas Hardy (didn’t like that much), Swallows and Amazons (wow! I wanted to be Nancy! which coincidentally and bizarrely was the name of the ex-missionary), tons and tons of Enid Blyton… then, when I was about 10, the mobile library started visiting the village once a fortnight. Suddenly the long summer holidays became so much more exciting…

I honestly think I’d have gone insane without the Berkshire and Dorset library services. I would certainly be a very different person. I remember the faces and voices and smiles of every single librarian at Woodley Library. I could draw you a plan of the shelves and tell you exactly where each section of books was located. In some ways I have more memories of that library than I do of my childhood home.

And now…

Now, in this time of austerity, my local council (Nottinghamshire) has just announced huge cuts in its library services:

Staffing cutbacks of 83.4 full time equivalent posts

Reduction of opening hours including one day a week for the bigger libraries, two days a week for the next level down

the life of a book to be extended from an average 5.4 years to 21.5 years

To quote Ross Bradshaw:

The cabinet member for culture, John Cottee, said that “we are committed to libraries being at the heart of the community”. If so, this is a heart attack.

Nick Clegg is very pleased with himself at the moment – he’s announced a package of measures to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds learn more and have more access to education. Without access to library services, that’s like sitting them at a fancy dinner table and shoving empty plates in front of them.

I’m speechless. I don’t know what they’re thinking. I feel sorry for all those strange little girls, and the normal little girls and boys, who won’t have the opportunities I took for granted.

If you live in Nottinghamshire, write to your council member to protest. If you live elsewhere in the UK, write to your council member in support of your local library services. Do it now, make your voice heard before it’s too late.

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6 Responses

Wow – I read Have space suit about 10 times. I read Starship Troopers more (and HATED the film), and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress several times. I still have most of those books, bought from shops, 2nd hand sales, and anywhere I could find them.

The library was ok, but you had to give them back! One of my favourite books ever was from a library, and now I can’t remember the author or even the title. It was in an anthology, and had some scientists on the moon making a cow from parts because they missed the taste of milk. I ripped off the plot for an English essay in high school that got one of my few good marks!

I’ve loved libraries ever since I could read. As a child, when we went on holiday part of the excitement was being able to have a guest ticket for the local in whatever seaside town we visited. A whole new library of books to discover.

It’s very disturbing to hear about cutbacks in such an essential service. I noticed one of our smaller local libraries is asking for volunteers to help run it now its paid librarians have had their hours reduced. I was thinking of offering to help – but another part of me really believes that this is something the government should be providing.

Periodically I go through my books, deciding which I haven’t read in a while or didn’t enjoy enough to keep so I can have room for new books. I used to give these books – most only read a few times and in perfect condition to the local village library. However, last time I took some they had to turn me away – apparently they had been instructed not to take any second hand books.

I must say I found this quite upsetting (I, like Pip had practically lived in the local library until went to Uni and actually had some money to buy my own books).

Shame really. The local charity shop had approximately 30 books that day, but I would much rather that many people would have been able to read the books.

Our Council, Nottinghamshire, is preparing to sack a load of staff and foist the 28 smaller libraries onto the community. In other words, unless the community is prepared to do the work of professionals the libraries at risk. So… good luck with learning about book selection, showing people how to run the computers, dealing with some very difficult customers, cleaning up after the children, taking part in local area partnerships, mending the broken window, doing double shifts if another volunteer decides not to bother that day… and do bring your own biscuits because NCC can’t afford them either. Sounds good?

Found you blog only the other day. I too am another one that spent lots of time in the library as a child (but not to the extent you and john did, I imagine 😉 )

As for the library closures and cut backs. I guess we must be the lucky ones, as only last week it was announced that our local library here in Ashbourne is to be replaced with a nice new development in a much higher profile location on the high street (while the old one isn’t really off the beaten track, its not in the most obvious of locations and could easily be missed if you weren’t looking for it, and i’m sure most ashburnians have forgotten it exists.) this for me can only be a good thing, and the kids and I are thrilled at the news. I only wish other councils would follow DCC’s example.

I know this has nothing to do with your post as such, but I haven’t seen The House at Three Corners since I was about 11 years old. It crosses my mind every now and then, today for example, even though I don’t remember another thing about it. How strange to find a mention of it just as I was wondering again. Do you happen to remember the author?